As ready as I’m gonna get August 30, 2009

Man, it’s like 1:30. Earlier today my office/homeschool room was getting way too messy. So I’ve spent the last several hours organizing and trying to get ready for next week. I finally took some time really look through this curriculum stuff. I think I *pretty much* know what’s going on now. We’re still missing Jackson’s Science worksheets but it’s not a big deal. I think worksheets are pretty much overrated anyway.

So, here are some pictures of Jackson’s workspace and his books and stuff. I’ve got the books in order of when we will be reading them, which is so “Type A” that I think I’m going to puke. I’ve even got labeled tabs. Jack was very excited to see that this little shelf thing came with tabs. I’m telling myself that this is more for Jack but I’m afraid that I prefer it this way too. And I’m getting this done a full day earlier than I actually have to!! And of course I now have a pictures folder named “homeschool 2009-2010.” What’s happening to me?

On the picture below, just in case you can’t quite figure out what Jackson wrote….”I am Jedi Master Jack and I am on a special mission…I am trying to distroy a big robot!!!! 100 feet tall and 99 cent!!!”

Needless to say, I think we need to work on learning about measurements.

Paperless world August 29, 2009

Okay, so I’m trying to get our stuff in order for the big first day of homeschooling in the Hintze house. I’ve been trying to decide for the last hour or so how best to communicate Jackson’s assignments to him. As I go through this stuff, I’m just realizing that he needs to have access to his assignments rather than me having to fish through my giant three ring binder every 5 minutes to tell him what he’s supposed to do next. First I thought I would write stuff on a dry erase board every week or just print something out and staple it to the wall. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I will just e-mail it to him. He has his own imac and he knows how to check his mail. I’ll put his weekly spelling words, his grammar “rule”, and some of his other assignments in an e-mail on Sunday nights and he can refer to it throughout the week. It’s a paperless world. Or at least it’s getting there. He might as well learn now.

Addition to original post -
So this is what I e-mailed to Jackson for the first week just so you can see what I’m talking about. There are some things that he will work on Monday through Thursday and those are things I will e-mail to him. I’m not e-mailing him every daily assignment. We’ll go through that stuff together with my giant binder.

Grammar rule of the week:
Compound words: two smaller words joined together to make one larger word.

Spelling words:
– checkout
- daytime
- airplane
- backpack
- campfire
- flagpole
- outside
- within
-railroad

Reading Activity Sheets, page 1 and 2 must be finished by Thursday.

You need to read over the following Bible verse every day and by the end of the week, you should have it memorized.

Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

So anyway, that’s the plan at the moment. We’ll see how this works out.

Friday Foto Fix August 28, 2009

Yes, I know this is kind of late in the day on Friday but it is still Friday. My friend, Lindsey sent me this picture of a waterfall from one of their camping/hiking trips to…?? somewhere. Anyway, here is the original.

As you can tell, it’s too dark and really doesn’t do justice to the beautiful scene.

So first I sharpened up the image a little bit. Then I did some tricks to brighten the picture while still keeping the sky in the background blue and not overexposed. I also brightened up the foliage some by adding a new layer in photoshop and painting some light green over the areas I wanted to be brighter. Then I used that layer as an overlay to the original picture. There were a few spots that were kind of noisy once the picture was brightened up. I used noiseware to take care of that. I also whitened and brightened the water. So here’s the picture after those things were done.

Then I decided that I really didn’t like the waterfall in the middle of the picture. Following the whole “rule of thirds” thing I decided to crop it so the waterfall is off center.

And then I also did a black and white conversion.

So thanks for playing along, Lindsey!! I’ll e-mail these back to you and you’ll have a pretty new picture to add to your scrapbook.

If you want me to try my hand at fixing one of your photos, send it to jhintze@jhintze.com and I’ll see what I can do. Happy Friday!

One of those days August 27, 2009

There are days that I worry about Mikey. Well, not even days really, just bits during days. Today was one of those days. I took him to meet his preschool teacher this morning. And he basically had a major meltdown from the moment we walked in until I finally got him the heck out of Dodge. He kind of caught me off guard. I wasn’t anticipating him acting like that. There was another family there at the same time. Thankfully, they go to our church and know our kids so I wasn’t completely humiliated. Once we got in the truck to leave, Mikey screamed the whole way home. He continued to scream once we got home for another 15 minutes or so. I ended up gating him in his room until he was ready to settle down. Once he finally stopped, he was a bit hoarse for a while. His Occupational Therapist came this afternoon and we talked about all this stuff. She thinks that perhaps he can’t control these meltdown. I think that he’s manipulating me with them and has complete control of himself and the situation by melting down. Only time will tell.

On a more positive note however, Mikey’s preschool teacher is really going to extra mile to make him feel comfortable with school. We met back up at the school later today so he could have sort of another chance. And I think his second chance went great! And she goes to our church and will be subbing in his class this Sunday. She actually requested to sub in his class so she could spend some more time getting to know him. I’m in tears as I type this because I’m just so thankful that she didn’t just write him off. And based on his behavior this morning, I can’t say that I would have blamed her. More than anything else, I just want him to be loved. I think she will love him. I’ll update about that after his first day or two of school.

Most of the time, I think that all in all, Mikey is fine…..”normal”. But sometimes, besides the obvious speech issues, there are moments when I worry that there might be something more serious going on. And for about 2 hours today, that’s how I felt. I felt completely hopeless, alone, and like an utter failure. And the thing about feelings is that sometimes they’re accurate and sometimes they’re not. But when you’re feeling them, that’s your truth at that time.

But the real truth, no matter how I’m feeling, is that God gave him to us. He is meant to be ours. Exactly as he is. He is perfect for us. We are perfect for him. No matter what may or may not be going on with him. No matter what “diagnosis” he may or may not have down the road. No matter how well he adjusts to preschool. He is our son. And in my lowest of lows with him, which can get pretty dang low at times, I feel such a fierce love and devotion for him. I think too often I consider Jackson’s personality the norm and that makes Mikey seem all the more “abnormal.” But the truth is that Jackson’s not “normal” either.

So anyway, here are some recent pictures of the little worm.

Playing Connect Four. He learned very quickly to slide the thing on the bottom to either make the checkers stay or fall through the bottom.

We met some friends at the beach last week. Mikey piled lots of sand in this bucket. That kept him busy and out of the street for a while. In the second picture it kind of looks like he has a sand soul patch. I could have photoshopped it out. Oh well.

Mikey decided to play dress up on Monday. First he was Super Clown. He thought he was pretty cute if he does say so himself, which he didn’t btw.

See those pencil marks on the wall behind him? Bet you can’t guess how those got there. Isn’t that one of the biggest smiles you’ve ever seen? That’s because he was just about to climb onto the dresser and jump off, which he’s not allowed to do. And doing things he’s not allowed to do is the highlight of his day.

Then he was Batman. This Batman suit is for an 8 year old. He wore this suit the entire time his Speech Therapist was here on Monday. He could barely even use his hands or walk. Which actually made for a fairly productive session because he couldn’t run away.

And then later that day we tore up paper and glued it on another piece of paper. He made four pieces of “art” that I….. (gulp) threw away (gasp). Notice that he has only one sock on. He only wanted one sock on. This glue stick is no longer with us because later that day Mikey dug all of the glue out of it with his finger. He made sure to rub some of it in his hair before he got caught.

He is so precious. He really is.

Bayou Wildlife Park Part 2: The Goats August 26, 2009

The boy saw some goats. He wanted to take one home. He asked the goat’s mommy. She said no. He asked him mommy. She said no. So instead the boy let the goats chew on his clothes. (How do you like this writing style?? Yeah, I know. I’m getting tired of it too.) Here are some pictures of some goats.

Bayou Wildlife Park Part 1: The Ostrich August 26, 2009

A boy saw an ostrich.

An ostrich saw a boy.

The ostrich scared and delighted the boy.

More tales to come:
- The Goats
- The Camel
- The Pig

Whole August 24, 2009

I’m up late tonight trying to finish up some editing on a NILMDTS session I had a couple of weeks ago. I have probably delayed finishing up these pictures longer than I could have, maybe longer than I should have. I’m still within the time frame I gave the mom but still I need to buckle down and get this done. But this is the hardest part of it. Being there with the baby was hard but I was behind my camera a good bit of the time. And I was in photographer mode most of the time. Getting the lighting right, positioning right, camera settings right.

But now I’m up working in photoshop of pictures of a baby girl who never drew breath. And it’s just not right. These photos aren’t right. They shouldn’t have to be. And as I work on making her little body look “right” as best I can, I know that she is already whole and perfect in her Father’s arms. What is taking me hours to try to fix is already fixed. She’s perfect. We don’t do this work for the babies. We do this work for ourselves and for the parents of these little ones. We do this work to try to mend as best we can our own broken hearts and hopefully the parent’s broken hearts too. And someday when we meet up with them again, we’ll all be whole together.

As I was packing up my equipment to leave this session, the baby’s sweet mommy let her guard for a moment. She talked to her daughter as a mother should talk to a new baby and she showed her a teddy bear. She danced the bear briefly in front of her baby’s face. I can’t get that moment out of my mind. As difficult as it was to photograph the baby and now edit the pictures, that moment just breaks my heart.

This world is very broken. And sometimes I just long for Heaven. I really do.

Introducing: Friday Foto Fix August 24, 2009

I came across this blog from some other blog that I visited. I like the idea of fixing up photos and showing the before and after. But I want to fix the photos that I chose to fix, not the photos that this blog assigns you to fix. So I stole their idea of fix-it-friday and made it Friday Foto Fix.

Do you want to play? Send in an unedited photo to jhintze@jhintze.com and if I chose yours, I’ll do my best to fix it. On Fridays I’ll show the before and after on my blog and give sort of a rundown of what I did to it. But I can’t fix just any photo. It needs to be basically in focus to begin with and not totally overexposed or flashed out. Send it to me large or in full resolution and after I’ve “fixed” it, I’ll send it back to you. Cool? So get started. Send me your unfixed fotos and lets see what I can do with it.

Not My Child! Monday August 24, 2009

What did your kid do this week to embarrass your socks off? Did she tell a stranger intimate details about your personal life? Maybe he broke wind (loudly) in public. Perhaps your angel child drew a picture of his or her school…on fire. Or maybe your beautiful daughter empties the clothes out of her dresser and pours cereal on the floor almost every day. Yeah, if you’re reading this, you know who you are. Well, you’re not alone. Welcome to Not My Child! Monday.

This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

You know how some second graders still pick their noses? Gross, right? Yeah, well my son doesn’t do that anymore. But if he did, I would make sure to loudly say “Jackson, stop picking your nose.” no matter who’s around and no matter how stealthy he’s trying to be. I wouldn’t try to break him of this by embarrassing him in front of his peers. Not me!! Not my son!!!

Oh dear sweet Mikey DID NOT poop and pee in his underwear at Chick-Fil-A in the play structure….then refuse to come down!!! Jack did not have to go up there and force him to come down so I could deal with things. I sure didn’t then proceed to change and clean him up quickly and inadequately on the playground because I didn’t want to drag his disgusting fanny through the lobby!! We didn’t then escape out of there as fast as possible without notifying the Chick-Fil-A staff that they needed to disinfect!! (I called as soon as I got home. So hopefully they sent someone up there with some bleach.) Sidenote: Mikey poops at Chick-Fil-A EVERY SINGLE TIME we go there. I should have known not to take him in underwear. What was I thinking?

Jackson’s turn….let’s see. I just asked Jack if he did anything kinda dumb this week that he wanted to share. And he basically said that he did NOT do some kind of less than smart moves at the pool over the weekend with his grandparents. Apparently he did not accidentally do a flip in the pool and did not come out of the slide accidentally head first. Okay, I know that’s kind of weak but this kid doesn’t do a whole lot of stupid stuff.

Mikey totally didn’t act like a horrible insane child on Friday morning when I had to meet with a client in our house. He didn’t pull out all his big guns while she was here. I didn’t barely resist the urge to yell and spank him in front of her!! No my child!! He always behaves when I need him to. He doesn’t pick the most inopportune moments to act like the girl from The Exorcist!! Thankfully, this client is kind of a family friend and I *think* she was somewhat understanding.

Phillip and I decided that Jack now has an earning cap on how much he can earn doing chores. We kind of had to implement this because his precious grandmothers like to pay him $100 for 5 minutes of work. Okay, obviously an exaggeration but you catch my drift. So anyway, Jackson doesn’t keep reminding us NOT to tell his grandmothers about this. Jackson was not the one to tell Phillip’s mom about this deal. Jackson did NOT remind me yesterday not to tell my mom about it. I probably would have forgotten about it if he hadn’t brought it up. Genius.

We don’t have to remind Mikey almost daily that our yorkie is NOT a horse. He doesn’t point to the dog and shake his head “no” and say “horse.”

Jackson also doesn’t try to sneak onto his computer without permission. He doesn’t intentionally leave certain websites on the browser so the computer doesn’t go to sleep and thus doesn’t require us to enter the password so he can get back on. Not my child!

Jackson didn’t almost kill his sweet baby brother on the trampoline!
http://img199.yfrog.com/i/2qt.mp4/
He was fine, btw

Mikey didn’t slide 30 puzzle pieces under our entertainment center because I told him to clean up the puzzle. When I pulled it out, I didn’t find lots of other goodies that he decided to place under and behind it. Not my angel child!

Other things my boys don’t do:
- lie
- cheat
- steal
- gamble
- drink booze

I think that just about covers it.

Ha! Ha! August 21, 2009

I’m supposed to be working but I’m taking a slight detour to work on pictures of my own boys. And now I’m REALLY taking a detour to stop and blog about it. I want to do a 4X6 accordion album of our pictures from the beach in May. I needed to find another picture for the album so I went back to the originals to take a look. And I came across this. For whatever reason it didn’t jump out at me when I first went through these images but it did today. Which is why I never delete RAW files of my kids and will have to get more memory because of it. Anyway, here’s Jackson thrilled to have a camera in his face. This face cracks me up! Even with that sour expression, he is a beautiful child.